Cannes Critics’ Week, devoted to first and second features as well as shorts, has unveiled the line-up of its 56th edition, running May 18-26.

Directors - Fabio - Grassadonia - Antonio - Piazza

Italian directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza will open the selection with their second feature Sicilian Ghost Story, a genre-mixing work following a teenage girl as she searches for the boy she loves after he is kidnapped by the Mafia.

It is inspired by the real-life tale of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the son of a former Mafia hitman-turned-informant, who was abducted in 1993.

Screenplay - Ghost - Story - Sundance - Screenwriting

The screenplay for Sicilian Ghost Story was developed at the Sundance Screenwriting Lab and went on to win the Sundance Institute Global Filmmaking Award.

Dave McCary’s comedy Brigsby Bear [pictured], starring Kyle Mooney as a child-like man obsessed by a children’s TV character, will close the week.

Comedy - Claire - Danes - Mark - Hamill

The quirky comedy - also starring Claire Danes, Mark Hamill, Greg Kinnear, Matt Walsh and Michaela Watkins – was one of the hits of Sundance this year where it was acquired by Sony Pictures Classic.

Tesson described the film as, “a delightful debut feature taking us back to childhood on a road paved with dreams made of feature films.”

Features - Critics - Week - Features - Competition

Overall, 1,250 features were submitted to the Critics Week, which will screen 11 features in total, seven in competition and another four as special screenings.

The competition includes for the first time a feature animation and feature documentary: Iranian director Ali Soozandeh’s daring Tehran Taboo, an exploration of sexuality in the Iranian capital, and Emmanuel Gras’s Makala, about a young...